Please forgive me if there are any mistakes in this piece! i am 16 (was 14 when i wrote it) and will improve, i'm sure...
This is an essay i wrote for a competition (link)
I realize that it sounds biased and on re reading it i feel it is overly harsh but it was written at a time when i was extremely angry over issues happening to me, which were related to my deafness. I give it here as it was written at first. I apologize profusely if this essay offends, and will remove it if requested.
My dream is of my life as I hope I will be able to live it someday.
My dream is of triumph over my adversity.
My dream is to create a society of justice and equality towards all.
I am profoundly deaf.
How did your attitude towards my dreams change with that revelation?
I dream of fifteen minutes of fame to make life easier for the oppressed. My dream is to change the perceptions of the world towards the deaf. My dream is to make the world a better place for the deaf community forgotten by the world.
Ours is a life of silence. We walk in silence, we live in silence and we suffer in silence. Since Helen Keller over a century ago no-one has stood up to become a spokesperson for the rights of the disadvantaged deaf community.
The blind are far more obvious than the deaf in public. Humanity is more sensitive towards the sight of a blind man tapping his way about than the sight of a deaf person standing wondering what is going on all around him He looks normal - until you attempt to speak to him and he uses sign language, and is shunned by society for being who he is.
People do not realize that the deaf are not dumb. When we do not 'hear', it is simply because it takes time to adjust to different voices. We all try the hardest we can; we have always wanted to be the best we can be.
People always want to be further up to the totem pole of society's hierarchy. But are you further up there than I am just because you are more 'normal'?
I cannot allow such blatant discrimination to exist in society.
We are no more different from you than you are from your neighbor. Yet we face adversity in trying to find a place in society.
I am profoundly deaf, but wearing hearing aids I have learnt to speak reasonably like a normal person. I study in a normal school with hearing friends. Am I lucky? Sometimes I look at the deaf who have chosen to forgo the 'advantage' of hearing aids. Are hearing aids a disadvantage?
Throughout sixteen years of living in your world I have found it hard to find friends willing to accept me with my deafness. Where hearing is needed, for example in noisy school cafeterias, they can't accept that I simply cannot hear. Because I study alongside them with no apparent problems they see me as normal or choose to forget that I am deaf. But hearing aids do not make me normal.
Others treat me condescendingly, as if I am far below them in society's invisible order because I am deaf. Because I am disabled. Because I am dumb.
When people have come to talk to my family, they have started by talking to me and everyone else, thinking that I am normal. If they discover I am deaf - "How deaf is she ?" they ask. Why not ask me instead? I am ninety percent deaf; my parents are not.
I have been moved out of classes when the teacher could not adjust to teaching a deaf student. She could not send me down to a lower class because I was doing well. So I was kicked out, into a higher class where I found the going tough.
What I found repulsive was that I was kicked into that top group simply because the teacher did not want a deaf student in her class.
The deaf who dismiss hearing aids, who live in their own worlds of silence, sometimes I envy them. Sometimes I wish to escape into their world.
The deaf who choose to live in the normal world are bold enough to stand up to the jeers of society. My dream is to eradicate these jeers. I would say, "Yes, I am profoundly deaf and here is my story." How would people react after seeing the kaleidoscope of emotions that is my world?
I rely on a vibrating clock to get up in the mornings and I stay up at the night when I cannot follow the day's discussions and must rely on myself to study. In twenty-four hours I start and end the day differently while adapting myself to your world.
If I could take the boors of society into my life for a day, I would stop the deaf from being mistreated and mocked every day.
If I could show the world the adversity we face every day, the world would gain a newfound respect for the courage of the deaf.
If I could show you all that I have faced, the discrimination and prejudice, you would begin to see me in a different light.
The 21st century world is full of promise for people from all walks of life, deaf and hearing alike. But the deaf community will always walk in dreams until the world acknowledges their existence and importance in creating a better society for everyone.
I walk in dreams.
This is an essay i wrote for a competition (link)
I realize that it sounds biased and on re reading it i feel it is overly harsh but it was written at a time when i was extremely angry over issues happening to me, which were related to my deafness. I give it here as it was written at first. I apologize profusely if this essay offends, and will remove it if requested.
My dream is of my life as I hope I will be able to live it someday.
My dream is of triumph over my adversity.
My dream is to create a society of justice and equality towards all.
I am profoundly deaf.
How did your attitude towards my dreams change with that revelation?
I dream of fifteen minutes of fame to make life easier for the oppressed. My dream is to change the perceptions of the world towards the deaf. My dream is to make the world a better place for the deaf community forgotten by the world.
Ours is a life of silence. We walk in silence, we live in silence and we suffer in silence. Since Helen Keller over a century ago no-one has stood up to become a spokesperson for the rights of the disadvantaged deaf community.
The blind are far more obvious than the deaf in public. Humanity is more sensitive towards the sight of a blind man tapping his way about than the sight of a deaf person standing wondering what is going on all around him He looks normal - until you attempt to speak to him and he uses sign language, and is shunned by society for being who he is.
People do not realize that the deaf are not dumb. When we do not 'hear', it is simply because it takes time to adjust to different voices. We all try the hardest we can; we have always wanted to be the best we can be.
People always want to be further up to the totem pole of society's hierarchy. But are you further up there than I am just because you are more 'normal'?
I cannot allow such blatant discrimination to exist in society.
We are no more different from you than you are from your neighbor. Yet we face adversity in trying to find a place in society.
I am profoundly deaf, but wearing hearing aids I have learnt to speak reasonably like a normal person. I study in a normal school with hearing friends. Am I lucky? Sometimes I look at the deaf who have chosen to forgo the 'advantage' of hearing aids. Are hearing aids a disadvantage?
Throughout sixteen years of living in your world I have found it hard to find friends willing to accept me with my deafness. Where hearing is needed, for example in noisy school cafeterias, they can't accept that I simply cannot hear. Because I study alongside them with no apparent problems they see me as normal or choose to forget that I am deaf. But hearing aids do not make me normal.
Others treat me condescendingly, as if I am far below them in society's invisible order because I am deaf. Because I am disabled. Because I am dumb.
When people have come to talk to my family, they have started by talking to me and everyone else, thinking that I am normal. If they discover I am deaf - "How deaf is she ?" they ask. Why not ask me instead? I am ninety percent deaf; my parents are not.
I have been moved out of classes when the teacher could not adjust to teaching a deaf student. She could not send me down to a lower class because I was doing well. So I was kicked out, into a higher class where I found the going tough.
What I found repulsive was that I was kicked into that top group simply because the teacher did not want a deaf student in her class.
The deaf who dismiss hearing aids, who live in their own worlds of silence, sometimes I envy them. Sometimes I wish to escape into their world.
The deaf who choose to live in the normal world are bold enough to stand up to the jeers of society. My dream is to eradicate these jeers. I would say, "Yes, I am profoundly deaf and here is my story." How would people react after seeing the kaleidoscope of emotions that is my world?
I rely on a vibrating clock to get up in the mornings and I stay up at the night when I cannot follow the day's discussions and must rely on myself to study. In twenty-four hours I start and end the day differently while adapting myself to your world.
If I could take the boors of society into my life for a day, I would stop the deaf from being mistreated and mocked every day.
If I could show the world the adversity we face every day, the world would gain a newfound respect for the courage of the deaf.
If I could show you all that I have faced, the discrimination and prejudice, you would begin to see me in a different light.
The 21st century world is full of promise for people from all walks of life, deaf and hearing alike. But the deaf community will always walk in dreams until the world acknowledges their existence and importance in creating a better society for everyone.
I walk in dreams.